Eight officials who served across the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations on what the United States can still do to help Afghanistan — and what they wish they’d done differently.
Annie Pforzheimer, deputy chief of mission in the U.S. embassy in Kabul, 2017-2018 and acting deputy assistant secretary of state for Afghanistan, 2018-2019:
What I can imagine is an effort to be sure the money spigot keeps flowing — to capture the gigantic funding stream in the form of humanitarian and development assistance that’s been pouring into Afghanistan all these years. Imagine how they’d situate themselves to keep that revenue stream flowing. That’s what their behavior is likely to be.
I don’t think the United States really is looking to remain engaged in Afghanistan. We have short-term interests in terms of people to work with us that we want to help — civil society, women, the middle class. But those are not long, abiding strategic interests in Afghanistan. And so I don’t see the basis for a sustained relationship.The immediate focus should be on safely evacuating U.S.
The U.S. also should explore where there might be common ground with Russia, India, China and others to minimize the security threats emanating from Afghanistan. In addition, the United States and its allies should prepare immediately to address the large-scale humanitarian crisis that is unfolding, including the likelihood of massive refugee flows, in order to save lives and avoid a less effective reaction later.
We have obligations under the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act, which became law in 2019, but that said, what we can do at this point is a very small range of actions compared to the actions available to us three months ago. We still could try to use our leverage at the UN Security Council to extract concessions from the Taliban, who want sanctions against them lifted. They also want to be recognized so that they can take over Afghanistan’s seat in New York.
You worked on this issue in the U.S. government at an earlier stage of the conflict. Looking back, what do you wish you and your colleagues had done differently — or known?When I was working on this issue with Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, I actually tried very hard to create a platform for opening negotiations with the Taliban. At that point in time, the political mood in the United States was not supportive of “talking to terrorists.
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